


A Different Release

by lyricalaphasia



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: F/M, if jj abrams gets to cancel expanded universe canon i can do what i want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 11:00:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13950174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricalaphasia/pseuds/lyricalaphasia
Summary: Revan has no intention of going home. Her most loyal friend has every intention of making the most of their last mission together.





	A Different Release

“Did you tell him?” The voice comes from behind her, and Revan whips around, hands poised to move the air in waves toward the intruder until she realizes who it is.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she snaps, turning back to the Hawk’s controls.

“You brought me here, remember?” Canderous comes closer to her, staring out at the empty swirls of hyperspace before them. Absently, he puts his hands on the back of her seat.

Revan punches settings into the autopilot. “I told him,” she murmurs. “To an extent.”

“Vague,” says Canderous, but he decides not to press the matter. Whatever she has said to Carth is her and Carth’s business, and as he sees it, life is simpler if he keeps out of that particular entanglement.

She clarifies, slightly: “He knows I’m not coming back.” This means more to Canderous; now he, too, knows that they are not coming back.

\--

The first planet they land on in uncharted space ends with them covered in knife cuts and first-degree burns. As the native population of the city they’ve just shot and looted their way through bangs on the doors of the Ebon Hawk, Revan and Canderous have not a second to spare for basic bandaging, and swear their way through takeoff as T3-M4 takes over the turrets to keep the Hawk from a ground-based hull breach.

Once they clear the atmosphere and are moving forward again, the pair limps back to the medical bay and breaks open their first topical kolto tube of the journey. Revan slips out of her armor and pulls her tattered shirt over her head, rubbing as little kolto as she can on her wounds to try and conserve what, she’s sure, will soon prove to be too small a supply of medical equipment. As Canderous does the same, Revan looks at the clothing and pieces of armor she has taken off, and notices singeing through the backs of both. As the pain fades in the rest of her torso, she feels a stinging sensation just above her hips.

“Hey, do my back,” she says to Canderous, pulling off the thick armor protecting her legs. Without a word, he begins to spread kolto over wounds she can’t reach alone, and the softness of his touch - down her spine, beneath the waistband of her briefs - surprises her. As he finishes sealing each gash, he puts his hands just below her right shoulder blade and, with a quick and expert movement, pops a knot out. Revan gasps and lets out a startled laugh.

“Didn’t know I had a masseuse on the squad this whole time,” she teases.

“You’d be surprised what skills come in handy after a battle,” he says. “Can’t send troops back out on the field if they’re too sore to swing a vibroblade.”

She laughs again. “I’m standing here, half-naked and victorious, and you’re prepping me for another fight. Ordo, you’re something else.”

Revan picks up her clothes and heads back to her bunk, leaving Canderous to wonder how to take that.

\--

Neither of them sleep well. For all the stimulants Canderous puts together, he has nothing to counteract them. He suggests they spar in the cargo hold; sometimes, it helps, and other times, it ramps up their adrenaline so high that it defeats the purpose.

“We need a different release,” Revan finally says one day. Instantly, his mind goes somewhere he doesn’t intend. His face is already red from their sparring, and he hopes that hides his base impulses - but Revan is Revan, and truth be told, Canderous has always suspected Jedi could read thoughts, no matter how much Revan denies she does.

“What did you have in mind?” he asks.

“The same thing you do,” she says.

“Are you in my head?”

“Canderous,” she says, exasperated, “for the last time-”

“Yeah, you don’t read thoughts. Just checking.”

“Well,” she clarifies, “I don’t read minds. But I can’t help it if your thoughts are showing… elsewhere.”

For a brief moment, he regrets agreeing to Echani style combat. That regret vanishes as she pulls his arm around her bare waist. 

\--

They’ve had sex once before, back between Taris and Dantooine, when they had barely known each other. She hadn’t been Revan yet, and he had been little more than a corporate bodyguard. Both had expected their time together to be brief, that Canderous would find some job on Dantooine and this Republic soldier would go on her way, doing hunt-and-fetch tasks for Jedi or someone else Canderous didn’t care for.

But as they had left the rubble of Taris behind, Carth and Bastila had plans to make, Zaalbar and Mission had each other to console, and Canderous and this soldier were left to their own devices in the cockpit.

“You were impressive out there,” he had said, “for a footsoldier.”

“Footsoldier?” she had replied. “That’s nice.”

“No shame in that. Every army needs its grunts.”

She had laughed. “You’re pretty cocky for an unemployed security guard. You trying to rile me up for a reason?”

He had caught her eye then, and the glint in it had told him that they were on the same page.

“I think the autopilot can take it from here,” she had said, and they had headed straight back to the beds, double locking the door behind them.

It had been a quick and dirty affair that time, clothes thrown on the ground, hands on bodies, her bent over and gripping sheets, him holding her by the hips. Grunting, groaning, a final yell from each of them in turn before taking sonic showers. It had been fun, efficient, and above all, a standalone event, never to happen again. If any of the crew had suspected a thing, they had been wise enough not to mention it.

\--

After the revelation - that she is Revan, the greatest warrior in generations - he thinks about that first time, meant to be a blip but now somehow important to him. Still, he doesn’t expect more, doesn’t hope.

And now, here he is, tight inside her, sometimes on top of her and sometimes beneath, always a perfect fit. They fall into a simple pattern: she tells him what she wants, and he does it. Faster, she says, and he thrusts into her with all the speed he can muster. Slower, she says, and he lingers, tantalizing, building until she finally asks him for more. Touch me, she says, and she puts his hand where she wants it, moving over her breasts or tracing circles between her legs.

He grabs her waist when he is ready to burst, and as he does, as he calls out between gritted teeth, she reaches up and runs her hands through his hair, pushing back the longer pieces that have grown over the course of the journey or reaching down to trace the black-and-silver stubble lining his jaw. This is, though he will never admit it to himself, a gesture he treasures, a show of intimacy unlike anything he has shared with anyone else. This is the difference between the hour they spent together so long ago, all but anonymous, and the need they have for each other now, and it means something to him. Thinking about it, though, would be wholly unbecoming of the last of the Mandalorians, or at least that’s his excuse.

It’s his duty to help her stay in peak mental and physical condition, anyway. If doing that also feels incredible, if it helps her, if it distracts them… what’s the harm in that?

He stays inside her as his hands work her into a full-body flush. Her breathing gets heavier, and as her back makes its final arch, her whole body rising toward him and a delirious smile sliding onto her face, he feels an overwhelming gratitude toward the universe: if this mission is the last they ever take on, at least he’s helped make her happy.


End file.
